


Not A Brother Not A Friend

by kleine_aster



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Possibly Pre-Slash, Psychological Trauma, Psychotropic Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2244579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleine_aster/pseuds/kleine_aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, Todd is all alone in a place that basically preys on fears and feeds on past trauma – oh. Oh. That’s not good, is it?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Brother Not A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Angst,drug-induced hallucinations, allusions to past abuse and violence
> 
>  **Words:** 5.208
> 
>  **Notes:** My entry in this year’s dcufichunt for the lovely bloodymarynights! (As always, it got way the hell too long XD)

"One more thing," Oracle says over the intercom, "I know it’s unexpected, but someone should probably look after Red Hood tonight."

"And by  _look after_ , you of course mean  _tie him to a lamp post and call the GCPD_ , right?” Nightwing replies, because that seems obvious. He’s crouched between two of his favorite gargoyles atop the Gotham Casino, sipping coffee.

It’s been a nice night so far, and if he can somehow end it with sending one Jason Todd back to jail, it’d turn from good to great.

 

"Been a while since we’ve heard from him. What’s he done now?"

"Shot up an arms deal down at the harbor. But that’s not what I meant." There’s something in Babs’ voice that makes Dick take note; she sounds … worried?

"Before the police showed up, he escaped –"

“‘course he did –”

”- onto the wreck of the  _Llorando_.”

"… oh."

"Nightwing, I don’t think he knows. About the incident."

"But he’s got a helmet –"

”- that got pretty banged up when he somersaulted over that arms dealer’s SVU. Look, I’m hardly a fan of the guy, but –”

"No, I get it, Oracle. It’s fine." Dick presses his lips together. The soft evening breeze seems much cooler suddenly. He can’t even imagine –

"I’ll handle him. Thanks. Nightwing out."

"What is it?" Robin demands to know. He’s fearlessly perched on top of one of the gargoyles (which Dick lets him do because, well, it’s Damian, and his sense of balance rivals that of even Gotham’s most show-offy cats), lazily rubbing his eyes.

"Old friend in town?" That little shark smile plays around his lips as he grinds his fist into his open palm like he’s grinding an opponent’s bones into paste. "Someone I’d be interested in meeting?"

"Yes … I mean, no. Not this time." Dick gets up from his crouching position to look over the nightly city. He can make out the harbor with its dormant ships in the distance; if he’s fast, he can make it there in 25 minutes. Hopefully, it won’t be too late –

"It’s the Red Hood," he tells the waiting Robin. "He’s hiding on that old boat, the _Llorando_. What he  _doesn’t_  know is that said boat was the site of a lab explosion. A _Scarecrow_  lab explosion. Whole thing is basically  _dripping_  with fear toxin.”

“ _Tt_. And?” Damian scoffs. “What’s the big deal? So, Todd is all alone in a place that basically preys on fears and feeds on past trauma – oh.” Dick can watch in real time as Damian’s slightly delayed sense of compassion – which he  _does_ possess – kicks in. “Oh.  _That’s_  not good, is it?”

"No."

"That means we’re going to get him, right?"

Dick feels a knot in his stomach. The truth is, Jason is not a brother, he’s not a friend, he’s not even a remotely pleasant person to know, not anymore. That he’s also a walking bag of bad memories is hardly Dick’s problem, and –

"Robin."

"Yes."

"One of us has to resume patrol. Regroup with Batman and cover the route, okay? I’ll … go down to the harbor."

"Understood." Damian looks curious as to how that will play out, but his sense of duty wins over. He nods. "Hey, will you be drinking that coffee or …?"

"Be my guest, and don’t tell the boss," Dick says, puts the warm paper cup in his hand, and dives off the building.

—-

When Dick shows up on the boat, it’s all over. Whatever one-man-pandemonium Jason has unleashed here, it’s done.

The first thing he finds is the busted helmet. Through sheer luck, the explosives in it haven’t gone off, or else both Jason and the remains of the doomed ship would be at the bottom of the river now.

Then, he finds the bullet holes in the walls that Red Hood has emptied his magazines into; at whatever he thought he was seeing.

He finds the emptied guns next, and the knife sticking in the control console.

And then, he finds him.

He finds him in the captain’s quarters, a tall man tightly curled up into a ball, crammed into an impossibly tiny locker. It’d almost be funny, if it hadn’t been for that  _look_  on his face, the look of someone whose mind has collapsed. His rugged face is paler than bone, and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. His eyes are the wide, uncomprehending eyes of a frightened boy.

When he sees Dick in his breathing mask, he starts screaming, and he doesn’t stop for a long time.

—-

"I’m okay," he repeats, through chattering teeth, for the fifth time or the fiftieth, "I’m okay."

He’s not okay. But that’s not the bad part. Jason Todd has been not okay so many times in his life that it’s become just another state of being, like being cold, or lonely, or in pain, or terrified of the things his own brain is doing, or all of the above. He knows these things, they’re like his familiars, like shitty relatives that’ll never get off his back, he  _knows those_. He can deal. Doesn’t love it, but he can  _he can_. But this –

The bad part isn’t being not okay. The bad part, the  _really_  bad part, is that he feels – he  _knows_  – that he will never be okay again.

They’re heading down a long, dark, narrow corridor made of terror and dark edges that cut, and it’s getting colder and narrower and there’s nothing at the end except for pitch-black bleakness. This is it, this is the end of the line, this is his  _existence_  now there is no hope. He can’t stop walking, because it’s scary where he is, and he doesn’t wanna go on because it’s scary where he’s headed, but this is all there is now. This is not even the sweet nothingness of death. There is no end. It’ll be like this forever.

He keeps walking because not walking seems worse; even though his feet are barely working. His strong, trained legs feel like someone’s cut out the bones. His big, heavy body feels like some ridiculous carcass (again), hanging from Nightwing’s shoulder, weighing him down, useless.

"Jason. Sssh. Jason. Jay."

Nightw … Grays … Dick’s voice sounds soft, gentle almost, and Jason thinks it should freak him out because maybe he’s up to something. He  _never_  talks to Jason like that; he’s the traitor to the cause and the family disappointment, and their last interaction some months ago had been a kicking match on a rooftop that had ended with Jason in the Gotham River. Dick hadn’t checked to see if he was alive; he never does, and Jason isn’t sure if he would if their roles were reversed. There’s no love between … there’s no love.

Yet, he’s here now, holding on to him, talking to him in those low, calming tones that Jason  _knows_  should make him suspicious, but right now feel like a lifeline coming at him through the dark. Dick’s voice is the only tangible thing on this endless corridor that somehow seems to flicker in and out of existence.

"You’re not imagining it, by the way." Dick’s voice sounds hoarse and cracked. "The lights on this floor  _are_  defective, sorry ‘bout that. I’ve already talked to my landlord. You’re not going craz … ier.”

That’s kind of a funny thing to say, and Jason would laugh, if he wasn’t already crying uncontrollably, or at least he thinks he is. He feels nothing on his face. It’s numb. He’s thrown away his helmet back on that ship, when he became convinced it was suffocating him, cutting his cheeks and nose and eyes until they bled, crushing his skull into a little sharp-edged ball of metal. Moving in on him like the walls are moving in on him now. He sees faces on the walls, leering at him, their eyes rolling hideously over their wide, predatory smiles like grown men chasing little homeless boys through back alleys, and in some corner of his mind he goes  _those are posters_  but it doesn’t help. He starts hyperventilating and knows he has to  _bolt_ , or stay still and never move again.

"Easy," the dulcet sounds of Grayson intone again, uncharacteristic, Dick hasn’t talked like this to him since he’d been thirteen. Or rather, he hadn’t even talked to him like that  _then_ , because one doesn’t  _coddle_  Robins. And Dick had never liked him; or maybe he had, Jason can’t remember, it’s all a blur.

"Easy. Almost there."

Why Dick has come for him tonight, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why Dick lets him dig his nails into his arm, scratching him up in a way that probably hurts even through Nomex, because Jason’s frantic hands somehow think they can claw themselves to safety, like he’d been clawing at the ceiling of his casket, because that’s the kind of stuff the mind does when it’s going. He remembers the feeling of his fingernails coming off, it feels like yesterday, it feels like  _now_.

"Hey," Dick turns towards him and gives him a little push, and Jason panicks because he thinks that the wall will open up behind him and he’ll drop those eighteen stories again like last time and there  _won’t_  be a river. He panicks and he strikes, and it’s the kind of strike that’d put a man’s nose through his skull

“ _Hey!”_

\- but Dick catches his flaily punch and holds him steady. Jason feels something hard press into his back and realizes that Dick has just propped him against a wall.

"You’ve gotta stay like this for a sec, okay?" He tells him, like you would a child (a six foot tall, violent child), and it would piss Jason off if he didn’t find it so calming, because he sounds impatient, so it’s more like Dick now.

Being held down by his fists should freak him out more, but he sees Dick’s face up close, and Dick is very pale, and he’s frowning, obviously sour about the punch. But there’s something like  _concern_ , and also his domino makes him look like a handsome raccoon and that’s weirdly comforting right now. Jason stares at him, waiting for the fleeting feeling of safety to go away, for Dick’s face to contort into the evil, leering grin of a murderous clown, but it doesn’t. Jason still thinks it’s gonna; any moment now.

"Jason. It’s me. It’s me. Look at me."

Dick says, and then Jason feels him softly stroke his wrists that he’s still holding, and it reminds him of hands  _caressing_  him when he doesn’t wanna, and it makes him cringe, and Dick raises his brows and then he stops, he stops touching him.

"Stay here. I have to get my keys out. We’re home."

Somewhere, Jason hears a baby cry; it’s fading in and out, and sometimes it turns into the cries of a fifteen year old boy with a broken back, and then it’s the cries of a distant mother calling for him and

his fingers hurt and he realizes that he’s dragging them across the concrete wall, but it’s something to focus on now that Dick’s presence is further away, so he keeps doing it.

"Home," Jason gargles, pressing himself against the wall even though it’s moving, as if it’s the most important thing he ever did. "This isn’t. Home."

Is what he tries to say, but when it comes out, it’s just …  _blubbering_. His voice sounds hideous to him, incoherent, and it startles him, and he can tell from Dick’s mildly awkward expression that he’s not been making words. So he goes back to frenzied breathing, it’s all he can do.

Dick can’t reply because Jason isn’t making sense, so he simply kneels and does something to the floor and then he has a key. Jason simply stares at him, but it’s better than nothing, better than looking back at the shadows that are after them, the shadows of all the men he killed, who’ll catch up to him any minute now, to dig their blunt human teeth into his neck. He’s doused in sweat. It feels like his skin is coming off with every running drop.

"Hurry," he whispers. He forgets that it probably comes out as a series of noises, and that Dick doesn’t like him and that he doesn’t trust Dick, and that he’s not supposed to see him like this  _ever_. It doesn’t matter. “ _Hurry._ ”

He doesn’t know if he’s really said it, but Dick gets the door to open, turns on the lights inside, and then he’s back with Jason, shouldering him.

"All right, champ," he says. "Come on. It’s okay. This is my place.  _My_  place.”

He says it in a certain way, as if to let Jason know that he’ll be safe where Dick is safe. And Jason isn’t sure if he can believe it, but he clings to it like he clings to Dick’s shoulder as they shuffle through the door.

As soon as they’re inside, he mumbles, “No lights. N-no lights,” and Dick turns them out again.

He presses Jason into a kitchen chair. He sits there. The room is spinning. His head is spinning. And the room is spinning around his head. He’s mildly freaked out by the chair. He’s freaked out by that lamp across from the chair. He’s freaked out by Dick’s wallpaper. He’s startled when he hears running water and then he’s startled when Dick appears with a glass in front of him. But he doesn’t feel like he needs to run anymore. That’s a start.

Dick puts it in front of him and says, “Drink.”

For a moment, that action seems impossibly difficult. Then, it’s surprisingly easy. The icy water rushes down his dry throat and almost hurts his overblown senses, but it’s good.

"Jason."

He looks at the man sitting across from him with red-rimmed eyes. He realizes that Dick looks tired. Which is also good; it makes him seem real, less like something that’ll suddenly crack open to reveal something nasty underneath. He’s the only real thing there is. Jason is fixating on him and it’s embarrassing, but he has to right now.

Dick clears his throat.

"You know what this is, don’t you." His voice is calm, gentle and kinda … sad?

Jason is stumped on that for a moment. Then it comes to him.

"Toxin," he whispers.

And now he feels tears falling down his cheeks … again, or * _this time for real*_ , he’s not sure. Because he remembers now.

"It’s … s’ fear toxin," he repeats, and then he breaks down and fucking  _sobs_  in front of Nightwing, because it’s * _just*_  poison, it’s not what his life is now, and maybe at some point it’ll stop, it’ll * _stop*_.

Then again, what if it won’t. What if it was too much this time. There’s cases like that, screaming their lungs out in Arkham. What if he’s … what if he’s

Through his tears, he sees Dick attempting to smile at him. “Listen, you were right. You  _are_  okay. Or, uh. At least you will be.”

Jason stares at him from bloodshot eyes. “Your face,” he replies, drawing a ragged breath, “Stop doing that with your face, I don’t like it.”

And this time, he knows he made sense, ‘cause Dick stops smiling.

"How much," Jason mutters, rubbing his eyes. "H-how much. How long."

"Dunno," Dick admits. "No longer than an hour, though. It’s only residue, Jason, it won’t be … hey.  _Hey hey_. Don’t.”

Suddenly, Dick is looming over him, dragging his hands off his eyes, and Jason realizes that he’s been scratching at them. However, his reflexes are faster than his mind. He punches Dick in the stomach, and this time he gets him, and the Golden Boy drops, groaning.

"Don’t touch my face," Jason says.

Dick moans from beneath him. “Feel better now,” he growls, and he sounds right pissed, but that’s familiar, too.

"No."

Jason pauses. And then: “My bad.”

"Whatever." He hears Dick collect his breath (and probably count to ten), then he drags himself back onto a chair, wiping a strand of dark hair off his face.

"Jason," he says, "Jason, we need to get you into the shower."

The helmet-less Red Hood tenses. His skin crawls. In his current state, Dick might as well have said “I need you to climb that mountain over there, slay a dragon.”

"What," he croaks.

Dick looks sheepish. “Yeah. Look, that stuff is pretty high-density. It’s probably still sticking to your hair. Your clothes. We need to get it all off.”

"Shower," Jason repeats hoarsely. His head has cleared up enough to understand the need behind it, and there’s nothing he wants more than to get this shit off of him, once and for all. But he feels terror tug at the edges of his scalp again at the idea of being naked and alone and being  _made_  to do something. He starts shaking. He’s gonna hurl that water up again, he knows it.

Dick blinks at him. Jason can tell from his face that he’s not sure how to make it happen, either. But when he leans over and looks at Jason straight, his face is open and there’s no malice on it.

"Okay, how ‘bout this? You take a shower, and … uh, we’ll leave the door open, okay? And I’ll be right there, on the other side. We can talk, if you want. Or … I dunno, I’ll just talk." He makes as if he wants to reach for Jason’s hand, like he wants to squeeze it, but then he seems to remember and he doesn’t. "For as long as it’ll take. We can do that. It’ll be fine."

Jason feels like it takes him a long time to answer. Could be minutes. Or perhaps it’s only seconds; he’s not sure. But eventually, he says, “Deal.”

Dick’s shoulders slump as if in relief. “Good. And Jason?”

"What."

"Buddy, you really gotta start blinking again. You haven’t for an * _hour*_.”

They go and Dick shows Jason his bathroom, and he turns on the lights once Jason agrees to it. It hurts his eyes, but now that he’s actually started blinking again, it’s not as catastrophic as before.  Dick seems patient, even when Jason looks into all the cabinets and even the toilet bowl and under the rug to check if it’s bugged or if there’s something lurking there. He helps him out of his leather jacket, but that’s as far as Jason’ll go with him in the room, so he leaves. He takes with him all the scissors and other sharp instruments, which Jason thinks is kinda patronizing, but probably not a bad idea.

It feels like it takes him forever to take off his clothes. His movements are heavy and clumsy, and every inch of exposed skin prickles nervously. Might be an effect of the poison. Might be that somewhere deep down, he’s still waiting to get hurt. Come to think of it, those things are probably related.

The whole time, Dick is on the other side of the door, chattering away. It’s one of the things that make him so punchable, often, but right now, it’s about the best thing in the whole world.

"The shower’s gonna help, you’ll see. You’ll be back in my kitchen cracking wise about my interior design in no time. There’s  _so much_  for you to make fun of, you don’t even know. Hey, if you think you can eat, I can heat us some soup when we’re done. Alfred’s made it special. Though, wait … I think that’s been in the fridge for like five weeks. That’s too long for soup, right? Man. He can never know. What else…? I have these little doughy things that you can make Wan Tans with, in the freezer. I just have the doughy things, though. No filling. That’s probably no good. So … frozen pizza? I think I saw one in there. Hand me the stuff, I’ll toss it in the washer later. Thanks. Woah, nice belt, pretty flashy, where’d you get that …?”

His words – little bits of small talk about topics that don’t hurt, questions that don’t call for answers  – wash over Jason while he staggers out of his clothes, until he stands naked and shivering in the middle of Dick Grayson’s bathroom, walls still swirling around him, rubbing his skin and trying to get used to the fact that he’s naked in Dick Grayson’s bathroom and is going to step into the shower.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. Can’t close them for too long, or the assault of unwanted, blood-soaked, skin-crawling images resumes. He sees a magazine out the corner of his eye and has to turn it with shaky hands because the cover guy’s eyes are winking at him. On the back is a picture of a yoghurt, that’s better.

Then he’s ready.

He stands in the shower for a few seconds, heart pounding, shower curtain obstructing his vision in a way he doesn’t like. His shoulders are so tense they’re hurting. He lets out a shuddering sigh.

"Dick."

"Yeah."

Jason cools his head on the tiles, and wrestles with his pride. His sore eyes fall shut, and immediately remind him why that’s not a good idea, and why he’s got no use for his pride now.

"I … I need … I want. I want you in here."

"Uh. You mean. In … in the shower…?"

For the first time in what seems forever, Jason grins. It hurts; hell knows what kind of faces he’d pulled while Dick had dragged him here. It’s not Dick’s palpable awkwardness that makes him smile; it’s the fact that, right now, Dick would  _actually_ consider getting in the shower with him, ‘cause he’s a generous soul like that sometimes.

"No," he says raspily. "No, just … in the room, just … be there." He hesitates, then uses a word he’s never used on Dick before and had never thought he would. "Please."

Turns out, he didn’t even have to; because Dick had already come in the first time he’d asked. He can see his silhouette through the thin curtain. He awkwardly stands there for a moment, and then he sits down on the closed toilet. Never has Jason found the vague shape of someone more reassuring. Seeing him, knowing he’s there, does so much for him right now he can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed.

"It’s all right," he hears Dick say. He sounds quiet, and a little flustered. "I’m here. I’m not going anywhere."

He turns on the shower. The sound of the water is shrill to his ears and being wet and naked makes him feel paranoid, but whenever he turns to look, he sees Dick sitting on the other side, and it calms his nerves. Jason tries cold water, hot water, warm water. It’s all equally bad, but Dick must be right about the toxins; after a few minutes, his head seems to clear, and the drain stops looking evil and threatening.

Jason knows he has to slink down in the tub and curl up and hug his knees, so he does. He doesn’t care if Dick sees what a wreck he is. This has always helped him; no matter how bad things were, this has  _always_  helped him.

And Dick … Dick lets him lie there, in his running shower, for as long as he wants.

"Hey," Jason asks him after a while. "Why."

"Why what…?"

"Y’know." Jason blinks against the running water. "Why’d you bring me here. Seemed like a good moment to turn me in. GCPD has detox cells, too."

He thinks he can hear Dick breathe in a sharp sigh. But he can’t be sure, with the water and all. “Yeah … I’ve seen the GCPD detox cells. That’s  _not_  the place I’d want anyone to be stuck in. Not even you.”

He tries to make it all teasing and casual, but he sounds … affected, and Jason hears it. He also notices that Dick doesn’t really answer his question about  _why_.

Maybe he’s remembering it wrong. Maybe there’d been a time where Dick Grayson had liked him.

"You gonna turn me in later?" He smirks weakly. "Or … y’know, try?"

"… no. Not this time. Consider it a truce, or … I don’t know, bad detectiving."

"How unselfish, Nightwing."

This time, he really hears him sigh, and he knows that the moment will come where Dick bites himself in the ass because he’s had a chance to take down Red Hood, and didn’t. And Jason doesn’t blame him. Business is business; it’s how they are.

"This is temporary, isn’t it," He asks, his usually gruff voice barely loud enough to hear.

On the other side of the curtain, Dick moves slightly. “Yeah, told you. Now that the toxin’s washed off, it’ll probably be two to three hours until it’s –”

"No." Jason looks at his scraped knees. They kinda make him look like a kid, even though he really, really is not one. "I mean this. Us. Not fighting."

Dick is silent for a moment. Jason rests his chin on his knees. He knows; they both know. Dick is gonna go back to wanting to put him into Blackgate. And Jason … Jason will go back to where no Bat can find him. He’s probably gonna be filled with rage over this later, too. He might even get it into his head to punish Dick for having seen him like this. He doesn’t want to; but those are the things his mind does, at times. And in a couple days, they’ll be back to kicking each other off rooftops. Which … he’s not sure why, but Jason would take that over nothing at all.

And Dick, truly Batman’s progeny, finds another way to dodge the question.

"You’ll probably need a couple more hours ‘til it really wears off. You can crash here while I sort out your clothes, and call Jim Gordon for pick-up."

"…"

"I’m joking."

"With a paranoiac on fear gas. Very smooth, Nightw- Dick."

Dick’s voice sounds quiet over the steady, steamy stream of water. “Told you. You’re safe here. I’m keeping my word.”

Jason huffs. “‘course. You’re a  _hero_.”

Dick sounds stern and a little defiant when he replies. “Yes, I am.”

"That why you did it," Jason shoots back. "Come for me? ‘cause that’s what a hero does, helping out an unstable criminal when he’s having a bad trip?"

"No."

Jason can’t be sure, but through the curtain, Dick seems to be looking down at his feet.

"I didn’t do it as … that’s not what it was. I did it because …" He trails off, and Jason wonders if he’s even going to finish that thought.

"Because, Jason, you belong –"

It cuts him so deep that he can’t hear the end of it. “No, I don’t.”

"Okay, maybe you don’t," Dick admits, and Jason appreciates the honesty, even though it hurts, and even though he nearly cries because his impulses are still dangerously close to the surface. Not that it’d matter, while he’s using up Dick’s water.

 ”I just couldn’t,” Dick finally says. “I couldn’t let you go through that on your own. I didn’t want to. I just didn’t want to.” He seems mystified by his own decision, like there’s things between him and his successor that even he doesn’t really understand. And Jason doesn’t get it, either. But there’s been times where they’d hated each other, truly sincerely hated each other, and this is not that, and it’s better.

He waits until he feels ready to get up and turn off the water.

"Towel?"

Dick – who seems as glad as anyone that their weird Q & A is over – discreetly hands him a towel. It has Superman’s symbol on it, of course it does, because Dick is a big dope. Jason wonders if he also has a Batman towel, and has chosen not to give that to him out of courtesy or some weird sense of decorum. He wouldn’t put it past him.

Dick even does that thing where he averts his eyes when Jason gets out of the shower, towel around his waist. He’s taken off his domino. Jason sees that he has deep bags under his eyes. Even so, he’s so beautiful it’s almost physically painful. Or maybe Jason is just fucking high.

"You’re fucking fantastic," he says, anyway.

At that, Dick directs his eyes at him. He looks up and down Jason’s dripping wet body. He says nothing.

Now that the poison is wearing off, it hits Jason how weird it is for them to be hanging out. How weird, and unlikely.

"So." He rubs his bare arm. "I’m guessing you’ve a couch, or…?"

Dick looks up at him. He seems tired. “Jay,” he says. “You’ve been tripping on fear toxins all night. You can have my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

"Your bed not big enough for two…?"

He tries a cheeky grin that probably fails. He thinks he’s said it to tease him, but now that it’s out, he realizes that the thought of not being in the same room with Dick anymore is … not something he likes. Not now, not yet.

The other man ponders that. “You think that’d help?” He asks earnestly, the same way he’d asked him if he should get into the shower. “If I …”

Jason’s broad shoulders are drooping. “Honestly, I … uh … y-yeah?”

"Oh."

"I’m not. I’m not trying to … do a thing here –"

"Oh, no, I know. I get it. I know."

Dick hesitates. Then he says, “It’s pretty big, actually.”

The mood between them is quiet and quietly awkward as they go to bed. Dick gives Jason an oversized t-shirt, and slightly too tight boxer briefs to sleep him. He lets him have the fluffiest pillows, too. The distance between them is just big enough to not make it completely weird.

"I, uh. I might wake up screaming a couple times," Jason warns as they lie down.

Dick shoots him a grim smile from across the bed. “You and me both. So don’t sweat it.”

Jason rolls on his back, looking at the ceiling. Fear is still clutching and releasing his heart in bouts and fits. But whenever he listens to Dick breathing on the other side of the bed, it slowly fades away.

"You’re goin’ through a lot of trouble for a guy you don’t like, y’know," he whispers.

There’s no answer, but it’s not like he’d expect one, anyway. He thinks that maybe Dick has fallen asleep. But then, he hears the ruffling of sheets as Dick moves next to him.

"Don’t mention it." He sounds drowsy, but there’s that small hint of sadness again when he says, "Good night, Little Wing," and Jason hasn’t heard that in years and years. Dick says nothing else, and Jason doesn’t, either. He rolls to the side, curling up again, and drifts off to sleep, wondering if it’s weird for a grown man to feel this protected.


End file.
